Had to do this for my XenApp install (7-Zip on a Server 2012R2). Thanks to this post which is in turn based on this post. Trick is to put the following into a registry file and double click/ import it on the machine:
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Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\7zipFILE] @="7-zip archive" "FriendlyTypeName"="7-zip archive" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\7zipFILE\shell] [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\7zipFILE\shell\open] [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\7zipFILE\shell\open\command] @="\"C:\\Program Files\\7-Zip\\7zFM.exe\" \"%1\"" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\7-Zip\Capabilities] "ApplicationDescription"="7-Zip archiver" "ApplicationIcon"="C:\\Program Files\\7-Zip\\7zFM.exe,0" "ApplicationName"="7-Zip" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\7-Zip\Capabilities\FileAssociations] ".001"="7zipFILE" ".arj"="7zipFILE" ".bz2"="7zipFILE" ".bzip2"="7zipFILE" ".cab"="7zipFILE" ".cpio"="7zipFILE" ".deb"="7zipFILE" ".dmg"="7zipFILE" ".fat"="7zipFILE" ".gz"="7zipFILE" ".gzip"="7zipFILE" ".hfs"="7zipFILE" ".iso"="7zipFILE" ".lha"="7zipFILE" ".lzh"="7zipFILE" ".lzma"="7zipFILE" ".ntfs"="7zipFILE" ".rar"="7zipFILE" ".rpm"="7zipFILE" ".swm"="7zipFILE" ".tar"="7zipFILE" ".tbz"="7zipFILE" ".tbz2"="7zipFILE" ".tgz"="7zipFILE" ".tpz"="7zipFILE" ".vhd"="7zipFILE" ".wim"="7zipFILE" ".xar"="7zipFILE" ".xz"="7zipFILE" ".z"="7zipFILE" ".zip"="7zipFILE" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\RegisteredApplications] "7-Zip"="SOFTWARE\\7-Zip\\Capabilities" |
After this go to Control Panel > Default Programs and 7-Zip will appear there. You can set it as the default for all extensions/ choose the ones you want.
Update: Frustratingly, I learnt that the Control Panel way doesn’t do the trick for Citrix. Later I learnt that maybe HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\ might be where FTAs (file type associations) are stored, so spent some time exporting the keys from there and pushing out via GPO. Turns out that didn’t do the trick either as it includes a hash tying the file type association to the user & machine where it was set to (bummer eh!). Thanks to these two posts [1][2] I learnt that the official approach is to use DISM to export the FTAs for a user and then deploy it via GPO. The FTAs are deployed to machines, so you can’t have per user customizations this way (but the two posts above have some workarounds).
The DISM command is: dism /online /Export-DefaultAppAssociations:c:\ftas.xml.
Update2: Here’s a blog post containing a tool that lets you bypass this hash issue.
Update3: This is a blog post about the OEMDefaultAssociations.xml. This is the file where the default customizations are stored, which you can over-ride via GPO. Or you could edit this file itself per machine. I learnt via trial and error – this file is very sensitive. If there are missing entries (the default ones) or even out of order entries it seems to be ignored altogether.
The entries in this are configured on new user profiles (existing ones are left untouched) and users can modify the associations if they want. The entries in the GPO cannot be changed by users.